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What an intense and artful revelation this guy is. Azuma works in flowers and succulents and he takes flower arrangements to what I feel to be one of entirely fresh new levels of artistic skill and acumen that define a craft’s greatest possibilities. He waxes from irreverent and edgy in his arrangements – for example his launch into space of the bouquet show in the picture below –

To more spare arrangements, made to photograph and immortalize………””Originally Flowers exist in the nature in a way they should be. But I always thought that flowers shine even more or strike you with their beauty deeper in our minds when I stripped them out of their natural environment,” says Azuma.

(Sakura Tree)

Displayed in blocks of ice:

“I use flowers that are living. If I use their life to create a piece, I would like to create a work that should surprise the flower themselves, or the people who see them. I am an entertainer who uses flowers,” says Azuma of his art……….

His best friend and a virtual co-worker is his photographer, for obvious reasons. The richness and wealth of lush detail are studies captured in a cooperative effort. Azuma oversees every iota of his work and his legend is quietly growing and he recognized a talented mate in capturing permanent images of his work, often showing the depth of color that a dark background can provide. Far from being a dark study in the standard concept of the term, the backgrounds allows the blooms to explode for the eyes..

This one below may be my favorite. Here he uses ample numbers of Proteus plants to extrude virtual light from within. Proteus to me rank slightly above the greatest Rhododendron blossoms as Nature’s finest blooms.

But, like Isamu Noguchi’s restless range of artistic projects, Azuma also plays in realms he most certainly belongs in. This picture reminds me more of Salvadore Dali than of Nature although all the sculptures show here are representations of plant development.

He can make your office a snazzier joint too!!! 😉

I’m not just late to the Azuma game, I only discovered him today. After stumbling across all this, I had to get deeper. I absolutely adore what this man does. He just turned me inside out, lol.

The Parkands of Floyd’s Fork is a gorgeous conglomeration of other parks: Beckly Creek Park, at the entry on Shelbyville Road, begins a park-touring Odyssey designed for all 4 seasons of Nature in an incredibly beautiful Kentucky at its best. The entire $120 Million donated effort is nearly complete, having begun in 2012 the process of removing invasive species and replacing them in great huge, gorgeous swaths with local wildflowers and grasses. The volunteers who performed so much of the early work deserve world class applause. The result of everyone involved’s hard work is a real sense of Perfection.

This park has recently become a center of my medical rehabilitation from a crazy cosmic series of physical injuries. The gorgeously heavy early Summer air supports the jungle -like growth which is a Kentucky forest in Summer. Consistent downpours and spectacular thunder and lightning effects long into the night, sometimes still rumbling in the morning, make for a green environment in ideal growing conditions. Forests are incredibly dense, often featuring unique species such as Kentucky Coffee Trees, the common but lovely state tree, The Tulip Poplar, Hickory and the stately, huge and colorful Sycamore’s who lighten the already-rich environment.

And, of course, the park is named for the creek which passes through – sometimes raging, sometimes still – the creek is the heartbeat.

I was lucky enough to be around while smaller creeks feeding Floyd’s Fork took on a serenely luscious look.

Visiting the creek often in other locations every trip I make, I discover an old Sycamore snag protruding out as foreground for a still-life of calm riverhood.

The history of flow rates and rushing water is easily enough spotted, even – or especially? – when the water recedes..

Even having lowered, the water level still satisfies the gurgling reputation and surprises with its volume.

The most remarkable part of all is how the hundred miles of bike trails – a cyclist’s paradise with an eventual circling route around the entire city – follow the creek itself. Paddlers, kayaks, bicycles, fishermen – all are welcome and pretty much all return like me to savor this bountiful Natural Feast.

Next post, we will visit the Interpretive Center, the great playground and the stone work of some breathtaking specialists in a park which spared no expense in meeting craftsmanship excellence.

The term “radical” stems from the original Latin radicalis – “of roots” and from Latin radix “root”. Whereas, this term ironically resembles “Conservative”, owing to Conservatism’s high valuation of something’s earned past (especially when confronted with “radical change”), I really like the application of “radical” to art as something very nearly opposite of the spirit of its definition. “Radically opposite”, in fact. The term is loosely applied here, but in the overall “sense of things”, it fully meets the spirit of my claims regarding the stunning evolution of a trade which has seen periods of high fashion – from Ancient Times and Babylon’s Hanging Gardens to Frederick Olmstead’s White City and his incredible collection of urban designing accomplishments. Currently, we see regular people create masterpieces of riveting detail and variety in their own fabulous yards, inspiring more public artists and landscaping specialists in a wider realm. I have always said that the best work I ever ran across were productions made by homeowners in the experimental privacy of their own homes.

My current usage of the term “Radical Art” indicates a departure from “the regular” cosmetics of a trade so long defined as just an adjunct to buildings and their grounds – the General Field of Landscaping. It is my conviction that landscaping has evolved into its very own species of art and architecture, outgrowing “Dad” – into it’s own sort of identity as it evolves further into real art.

What we now see all around us in growing profusion are swaths of land, of urban and suburban wonders, we can simply no longer take for granted and which rivet our minds and souls in ways by which we find ourselves utterly challenged. Some are larger than others:

This work of art in Australia, known as ‘Mundi Man’ or ‘Eldee Man’ was constructed by noted painter Ando (website here) and is located on Mundi Mundi Plains, NSW. It is the world’s largest art work, covering some 4 million square meters, or 5 million square yards. That’s a lot of “cosmetics”!

Antonio Gaudi may have set the Lunatic Fringe of Radical Art in landscaping with not only his remarkable building designs, but in the incredible complexity and bizarre designs so rife at Park Guell in Barcelona, Spain. His admixture of “primitive” and ultra-modern are well-illustrated in this photo I gathered from this website, dealing with Cruises.

From the same park………….

Underneath this….

The stunning work of Isamu Noguchi, as offered in the first photograph above, has also offered a primary glimpse of landscaping radicalism for long years prior. Now fully enacted by a fabulously and numerically-rich coterie of building designers, the arresting visual and sensual 360 degrees of 3 dimensionality of landscaping reaches an exemplary peak in his work. Below is his spare, yet incredibly evocative construction of a park erected on the site of a former garbage landfill.

Moerenuma Park, Sapporo, Japan:

My view of these installation includes the packages relative to the advancement of technological breakthroughs in the machinery itself of construction. If Da Vinci could conceive of “lift”, “displacement” and the eventual forms which encourage Mankind to fly, then the wildly impractical new wonders of Drip Irrigation, water pumps and advancements in adhesives have opened an entire realm of gravity-defying work of its own.

Vertical Gardening will produce many Babylons, right before our every eyes:

Even residences will gain from inexpensive-yet colorful profusions of verticality, a technology now just getting underway.

Machines

The advent of the Mini-Excavator, in my world of installations, has produced amazing wonders, quickly-accomplished, only requiring an imaginative combination of materials, designers and installers to implement the next wave of the booming field of water features. Note here the incredible handsomeness of the stud at the business end of such a handy little monster of torque:

The above became this……….

Fountains, water, radicalism, sound and senses…………………..

(Noguchi again):

Lighting has caused a Mini Sensation and a completely outrageous burst of creativity in the field as well, from simple, well-placed uplights and filters of a smaller but ineffably gorgeous dimension:

To the radical fringe of massive urban production such as this Mall Fountain in Singapore – the world’s largest fountain:

More Radical yet, we have the entire realm of fountains and the myriad new applications of water, beginning, once again, with Noguchi’s completely impractical 9 Floating Fountains at the 1970 Osaka World’s Fair:

My belief is that we are just entering a field which promises a burst of fabulous artwork of increasing meaning and relevance. I honestly believe we are being pushed outdoors, kicking and screaming, as our back yards become “destinations” and extended living rooms, kitchens and dens. Our cities become more vibrant when we supply other “destinations” to please the eyes and senses. The factor of radical art in landscaping may even supply microcosmic pleasure in the tools and those items which we have so long merely taken for granted………..

such as garden furniture, as Helen Nock (website included) so brilliantly illustrates:

Walls and fences take on some structural interest when in the hands of Micahel Eckerman of Santa Cruz, his website here. A surfer and gatherer of native materials, his formations show movement and form which closely resemble the behavior of ocean waves:

The creations we see today raise our vision and stop our wandering eyes so that we can better focus on their message. The “message”, as in all art, is that of celebration of our shared humanity. These spiritual accomplishments encourage us all to be better people, in every way.

I am glad Landscaping enters the realm of art itself. The scope of the trade has no conceivable limit, from the very tiniest of realms to those of massive scale. It is Man tickling Man and the sooner we understand that, the more we can create and enjoy more of the same.

Yes, this is another recycled post from about 3 years ago which I feel good enough to re-post with a couple of additions. Inasmuch as I am officially a “retired landscaper”, we will not be seeing more pictures of myself and friends on the job. My last one was about 2 years ago, here in Louisville.

For a landscaper, any intensity of interest towards something Avante Garde might seem unusual. But these are the bizarre personal complications our Maker has decided to afflict some of us with. The inspiring nature of art needs to be a part of any grade school and especially junior high school curriculum. Artists hang out way out there in their own whimsy, dedicated beyond the norm to present a weird brand new world of wonder for we admirers to sensually and mentally take in. They perform these works selflessly and most often wordlessly.

Enjoy.

My good fellow blogger Frances the other day lamented the curse of “trends” in gardening, speaking to an irritation I can cop to as well. Here is her rant – fairegarden -and I sincerely implore people to check it out – for the colorful explanations of her angst as well as her usual stunning pictorial abuse of her very own garden. It made me consider the qualities of art and, really, everything – and it also made me consider those things which move me most.

I have a very real fascination with what I consider to be current ‘Avant Garde’ artists. I also like the connoisseurs of those artists who blog, review and attempt to describe their heartfelt relationships with wild ideas. A restless pursuit of new things can be an addiction – at its worst we become unseated from our table, off chasing the current butterfly. At best – and these are the moments we cherish – we discover something new, uplifting and which cracks open a window into another world entirely. The sheer differentness of utilizing normality to express meaningful connections in new and unique ways shows us our own potentials in their amazing variety. It reveals, too, a depth which is so fortunately unfathomable at its highest expression.

Here is Ernst Reijsiger and Mole Sylla last Summer at a workshop in Amsterdam using classical elements of beat, instruments and the rest but putting it into a stew of cross cultural and uniquely human celebration:

Nor does the stark ability of an artist in his or her moments of great achievement mean any less simply because of the era. Our discovery makes it contemporary in all the important ways, be it the Avant Garde qualities of Antonio Gaudi or the painted styling of Hieronymus Bosch. The unattributed photo below illustrates an incredibly stark imprint of time and place on the part of the artist. In its enlarged state, perhaps you too can find why and how I found myself utterly riveted by it.

A partially-excavated Sphinx looms in its unfinished excavated form and quite broken splendor over the relatively tiny bodies of workmen or perhaps passing Bedouins who had used it as a shady rest stop for Centuries. The contrast of modernity – which is the picture itself – mix with the grandness of scale and the breath of living subjects amid the ruinous nature of Time.

Clicking to enlarge this picture reveals far more than the compressed visual here. Indeed, all of these are prone to enlargement, although I have scaled back the monster shots which take up so much bandwidth, to Annette’s relief.

Less than a pursuit of genius – which is another level of inquiry and surprise – I glory in little discoveries of felt presentation which move me in mysterious ways. Needless to say, among the Avant Garde of modernity, architects and builders tend to rule over a region of art and accomplishment like few others – and I include landscape design artists such as Isamu Noguchi who make indescribably evocative and massive sculptures out of land and the products of Earth itself.:

Below is what was a landfill in Sapporo, Japan before Noguchi changed things:

More Personal – My Private Enthusiasms:

An absolute favorite artist of mine is a lady named Helen Nock – website here – who plies at garden furniture construction, sculpture, iron work, roofing tile salvage and who puts together gloriously beautiful and impractical pieces over in merry Olde England and with whom I share yuks on Facebook. Her overall body of work is absolutely and utterly unique:

Michael Eckerman of Santa Cruz, California is an artist in stone – among other mediums – website here – who constructs structural landscape elements using a bizarre variety of forms and materials. In the case of this landscape retaining wall, hard by a driveway, his love of surfing and the ocean display an uncanny sense of motion and force. Nor is this the only case where Michael works with nature to provide breathtaking works of landscape and interior home art. His work has to be seen to be believed:

In closing, I can hardly think of a more interesting sampler of sound and depth than Joe Zawinul and his usual collections of the best musicians on the planet: